A PROMINENT expert on the ozone layer has died at the age of 87.

As a young postgraduate student in the early 1950s Desmond Walshaw studied Gordon Dobson, who developed the ozone spectrophotometers to measure the amount of atmospheric ozone.

While studying under Dobson he helped with the calibration of these ozone spectrophotometers and their shipment to receiving stations around the world.

The pair remained friends and he was given the job of inspecting and advising on improving observations in ozone stations across Western Europe.

After completing his PhD at Clare College in Cambridge he moved to Oxford where he became a lecturer in atmospheric physics at Oriel College.

Between 1964 and 1984 he was a member of the International Ozone Commission, which helps organise the study of ozone around the world, as well as of the Royal Meteorological Society.

He helped establish a series of stations around the world which could monitor what was happening to the hole in the ozone layer and feed the results into computers for analysis. From 1976 until he left the International Ozone Commission he served as its secretary.

Born Charles Desmond Walshaw in Coventry on October 2, 1925, but later known as Desmond Walshaw, he grew up in the city before leaving for Cambridge where he studied at Clare College.

But he had to leave university in the early 1940s to serve in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.

When he returned from the war he resumed his studies at Cambridge before arriving in Oxford, where he lived for the rest of his life.

He moved to St Cross College when it was established as a graduate college in 1965.

In the 1990s he retired from academia and split his time between visiting prisoners, serving as a church warden at St Peter’s church in Wolvercote and helping the Wolvercote Young People’s Club.

Illness meant he had to leave his home in Mere Road and move into a residential home. Mr Walshaw died on April 24. He did not marry and had no children.

His funeral took place at St Peter’s Church in Wolvercote on Friday, May 17.